{"id":58551,"date":"2019-07-22T23:50:25","date_gmt":"2019-07-22T23:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=58551"},"modified":"2019-07-22T23:50:25","modified_gmt":"2019-07-22T23:50:25","slug":"becoming-free-becoming-black-race-freedom-and-law-in-cuba-virginia-and-louisiana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=58551","title":{"rendered":"Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom, and Law in Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/us\/academic\/subjects\/history\/atlantic-history\/becoming-free-becoming-black-race-freedom-and-law-cuba-virginia-and-louisiana\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><strong>Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom, and Law in Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cambridge University Press<\/a><br \/>\nJanuary 2020<br \/>\n320 pages<br \/>\n17 b\/w illus. 6 maps 2 tables<br \/>\n228 x 152 mm<br \/>\nHardcover ISBN: 978-1108480642<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/aaas.fas.harvard.edu\/people\/alejandro-de-la-fuente\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Alejandro de la Fuente<\/strong><\/a>, Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics; Professor of African and African American Studies<br \/>\n<em>Harvard University<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/gould.usc.edu\/faculty\/?id=219\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Ariela J. Gross<\/strong><\/a>, John B. and Alice R. Sharp Professor of Law and History<br \/>\n<em>University of Southern California<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/us\/academic\/subjects\/history\/atlantic-history\/becoming-free-becoming-black-race-freedom-and-law-cuba-virginia-and-louisiana\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"igImage\" class=\"image-stretch-vertical\" style=\"max-height: 500px; max-width: 329px;\" src=\"https:\/\/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/41UTQbR7VHL.jpg\" width=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Highlights<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Examines the development of the legal regimes of slavery and race in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cuba\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cuba<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Virginia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Virginia<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Louisiana\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Louisiana<\/a> from the sixteenth century to the dawn of the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/American_Civil_War\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Civil War<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Demonstrates that the law of freedom, not slavery, determined the way race developed over time<\/li>\n<li>Draws on a variety of primary sources, including local court records, original trial records of freedom suits, legislative case, and petition<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>How did Africans become &#8216;blacks&#8217; in the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Americas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Americas<\/a>? <em>Becoming Free, Becoming Black<\/em> tells the story of enslaved and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Free_people_of_color\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">free people of color<\/a> who used the law to claim freedom and citizenship for themselves and their loved ones. Their communities challenged slaveholders&#8217; efforts to make blackness synonymous with slavery. Looking closely at three slave societies\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cuba\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cuba<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Virginia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Virginia<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Louisiana\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Louisiana<\/a>\u2014Alejandro de la Fuente and Ariela J. Gross demonstrate that the law of freedom\u2014not slavery\u2014established the meaning of blackness in law. Contests over freedom determined whether and how it was possible to move from slave to free status, and whether claims to citizenship would be tied to racial identity. Laws regulating the lives and institutions of free people of color created the boundaries between black and white, the rights reserved to white people, and the degradations imposed only on black people.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Introduction<\/li>\n<li>1. &#8216;A Negro and by consequence an alien&#8217;: local regulations and the making of race, 1500s\u20131700s<\/li>\n<li>2. The &#8216;inconvenience\u201d of black freedom: <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Manumission\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">manumission<\/a>, 1500s\u20131700s<\/li>\n<li>3. &#8216;The natural right of all mankind&#8217;: claiming freedom in the age of revolution, 1760s\u20131830<\/li>\n<li>4. &#8216;Rules \u2026 for their expulsion&#8217;: foreclosing freedom, 1830s\u20131860<\/li>\n<li>5. &#8216;Not of the same blood&#8217;: policing racial boundaries, 1830s\u20131860<\/li>\n<li>Conclusion: &#8216;Home-born citizens: the significance of free people of color.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Becoming Free, Becoming Black&#8221; tells the story of enslaved and free people of color who used the law to claim freedom and citizenship for themselves and their loved ones. Their communities challenged slaveholders&#8217; efforts to make blackness synonymous with slavery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,21,459,1467,369,17,6940,20,693],"tags":[11582,880,873,1956,673],"class_list":["post-58551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-latincarib","category-history","category-law","category-louisiana","category-monographs","category-slavery","category-usa","category-virginia","tag-alejandro-de-la-fuente","tag-ariela-gross","tag-ariela-j-gross","tag-cambridge-university-press","tag-cuba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58551"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58552,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58551\/revisions\/58552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}